short and sad AU AU
by Orra
Summary: Only thing I´ve ever written, about two months ago. Borrowed an idea from Stephen King and the whole thing is inspired by Astrid Lindgren. As the title says short and sad, and! main charakter death! Also English is not my native language. Feedback yes, bu


The grew up near the same town, though their parent´s farms were of the opposite side of the town.

Ennis, tall, lanky and all long legs was the youngest of the del Mar family. He had the dirty blond hair of his father and the kind brown eyes of his mother, though you seldom could see much of his eyes. Being farsighted had him squinting his eyes near all the time and the need to impress all the other kids in the neighborhood that he was as tough as his big brother K.D. had probably not much less to do with it. The oldest of the siblings was a girl named Edith, she was his favorite sister, well, she was is only sister, but nevertheless Ennis liked her much more than his brother, which was a bully right through and through.

His father was a harsh man, never got a good word for him, never a word for him at all. All the words the old man had were for his other son K.D. „a son ya can be proud of", „the only son ya can be proud of in this house".

So the first five years of his life Ennis grew up with a father, who didn´t ever see him, and if he happened to see him answered this unfortunate event with a „boy, get outta my sight and do something useful and look for my son K.D."

That was one of the many differences between him and Jack.

Jack was an only child and his father had a lot of words for him, though they weren´t by any means any kinder than the few words Ennis got to hear, in fact they were much worse.

And also worse was all the other attention Jack received from his father.

Old man del Mar being never short in the usage of the leather belt if the need arised was quite harmless in comparison to old man Twist, who was of the mind that any day without a good a whipping for the boy to learn to be a real man and not a sissy, was a wasted day.

The day they met was cloudy, rainy day in November.

It had had been raining for the past few days, and both sides of the main street in town were overflowing with water. Wich was very fortunate for Ennis. He had been sick for the last two days, and old man del Mar was not very pleased with that, no, not at all. He could overhear his father yelling in the kitchen, „that boy of you, no good, no good for nothing at all, all he do is cost us a fortune with them pills" and then the slamming of a door. Enis could not remember ever taking any pills because of an illness, and surely his Mama coudn´t neither.

So being sick and stuck to his bed had Ennis bored in a very short time.

His mama, kind as she was, had his sister send in to play with him. And after a few akward moments, in which neither one knew what to do with the other, Edith had the idea to make some things out of old newspaper. You could tell that Ennis was not very enthusiatic about that idea, but after showing him how to make little boats and telling him that he could let them flow later, she had him along.

Two days later had Ennis, equipped with a little Armada of tiny waxed newspaperboats, all of them safely packed in bag, tagged along his Mama in order to go into town (because there was no way old man del Mar would allow his youngest son to play with little paperboats on the ranch).

And so was how they met. Ennis was standing on the sidewalk in front of the store, in which his mama was grocery shooping, and watched one after the other of his tiny boats ride on the water until it disappeared in the next gully, which was way to near in his oppinion. But his mama had told him to wait in front, and so he did. After about half of his little Armada was already deep down in the bowls of the town, he felt being watched and turned around. And sure there was standing a little boy, about his age, but not near as tall as he was, and watched Ennis with a hungry look in the biggest and bluest eyes Ennis had ever seen. Then a grin was spreading across his face, which showed all the missing teeth, and a hand was offered.

Ennis, afraid the boy wanted to take away his boats, frowned and hid the bag with the rest of the boats behind his back. The boy stepped forward, his smile grew even bigger, Ennis wasn´t so sure that was possible but he sure had a big mouth, and said „Hi, me Jack, sure some nice boats you have yourself there".

Ennis didn´t give an answer and after a little while the hand was snatched back, but the smile lingered, although not as bright as before.

„Uh, I thought mebbe ya let me watch ya"

Ennis just stared back.

„Ya know, ya letting the boats ride on the water down the street, me thought, ya would mebbe let me watch. Promise wun´t touch them. Them your´s, just wanna watch."

After a few moments of his best K.D. glare Enis could master he answered in taking one of his boats out of the bag.

„ya hafta watch fast, way to the gully is real short"

The smile grew bigger again and Ennis thought that his face would sure split in half any second now.

„sur ´nuff"

And Ennis let the boat free.

A loud „whooooooooooowheeeeeeeeeee" was heard, the face did split in a half , blue eyes started to shine, and Ennis gave his first tentative smile back.

The second boat had Jack running along the sidewalk, all the way whooping, and waving like crazy with his arms. Ennis was grinning by now.

„Next one´s comming"

And Jack was getting down on his knees to see it disappearing in the gully.

„I saw it, I saw it all the way down there, come on, next one"

And Ennis grabbed another one.

After that there were only two left and Ennis looked at Jack, who was still kneeling on the sidewalk next to the gully, looking at him expectantly.

„ya hafta come back"

„whut"

„Ya hafta come back to me"

Jack mumbeld something got up and came back to Ennis with a sad look on his face. But Ennis was still grinning grabbed the last but one of the boats and handed it to Jack. That was one of the rare moments which had Ennis not squinting his eyes, actually they were open like never before with a warm and kind look in them.

And Jack looked straight back in Ennis eyes, the blue of his eyes got bluer, and Ennis thought they were much nicer than them cornflowers his sister loved so much.

Jack took the boat kneed down, looked up at Ennis, grinned from ear to ear and told him to go down to gully and watch it coming. And so Ennis did.

Ennis did not see how it happend, did not see the car coming way to fast along the street directly to where Jack still kneed, only thing he had eyes for where his little newspaperboat riding along the sidewalk on the waves of the past days rain on its hurried way to its end.

Later he remembered only hearing a not so loud thud and then the sceaming voices, loud screaming voices.

But the thing which he would never forget for the rest of his life, were the eyes.

They were open and Ennis could see that they still had the same beautiful color, but he couldn´t understand that they wouldn´t smile now, the whole time, the eyes of the boy had smiled right back to him and now they didn´t anymore. Instead there were now big droplets of water. It had started to rain again and Ennis was sure it was only they rain, rain in blue eyes that looked like tears, ´cause boys don´t cry, his Daddy had told him often enough.

Then why felt the rain on his cheeks so hot?


End file.
